Hundreds of thousands of Argentines said goodbye to Cristina Fernández in Plaza de Mayo during her last speech as head of State, after eight years in office.

Argentina’s President, Cristina Fernandez, thanked last Wednesday the more than 42 million Argentines who supported a decade of change in their country.

The crowd in Plaza de Mayo, in front of the Casa Rosada

During a ceremony at Casa Rosada (house of government) the President unveiled a bust of former President Nestor Kirchner that will be part of a collection of sculptures in the presidential compound.“The natural place for a militant is not in government, it has to be with the people and for the people”, she said after referring to the importance of popular participation in a free and democratic country.

After completing the act at Casa Rosada, Cristina Fernández she talked to the crowd of Argentines concentrated in Plaza de Mayo, in Buenos Aires City to express their support and greet the President, who leaves office after making possible great social achievements of Kirchner’s project.

“I expect an Argentina without censorship or repression, freer than ever”, said Fernandez in her last Presidential act.

“Thank you Ms. President”

“In order to industrialize the country, it is necessary to make social investment and to support the working class” Fernandez said after referring to one of the actions that her government supported to strengthen economy of the country.She said that no other Argentine Government had as much concern for health, education, technological progress, equality and social inclusion.

“We leave the government after paying most of the external debt, as had never been done before, after recovering 119 grandchildren kidnapped by the dictatorship, and having vindicated pensioners and retirees who had been excluded for years”, she said.She said that she can look to the face of the 42 million Argentines, thanks to the achievements of the last decade. “I only ask God that those who come behind us due to popular will, may came to this square in four years and look into the eyes of Argentines, proud for having done a good job”.

Source: EFE/JAVIER GALLARDO

She recalled that in her eight years of government, unemployment stood at 5.4 percent, a record figure in the political history of the country. She added that the only two satellites that the country owns, were created locally by Argentinians, thanks to the economic and social support that her administration provided to national human talent.

“If there was ever a man who worked to establish real authority in Casa Rosada, he was called Nestor Carlos Kirchner”, she said after referring to the importance of having a head of State that serves the interests of people and not the interests of neoliberal policies from International Monetary Fund (IMF).From different provinces, Argentines gathered at Plaza de Mayo to share testimonies about their lives during the Kirchner decade.

“We come to give recognition to Cristina, this is not a farewell”, said Inti, a 30-year-old art teacher. Excitedly, she said that she had participated in an artistic recognition to the President, “we made hundreds of white lilies, which is Cristina’s favourite flower, to remind her, symbolically, that we are what Néstor (Kirchner) vaticinated with his phrase: ‘may a thousand flowers flourish’”.Flavia Rosario, also present at Plaza de Mayo, said that before Kirchner decade she “did not understand anything about politics, nor knew what Peronism was” but “in 2000 my family went bankrupt and when Nestor came, we began to grow and today we have 16 employees and we realized that this was not only due to our effort”.

Fernandez denounced last Monday that she was verbally abused by Mauricio Macri, who demanded in a phone call, raising his voice, “that she should hand him the presidential baton and band at the Government House because it was ‘his ceremony’ and if she did not do it that way, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation would transfer him the attributes because he had already consulted them”.

Macri has acknowledged, on several occasions, that he comes “from a sexist family” therefore he believes that women should not play any political role in society.